teaching narration

[EmilyGF]

Hi all,

 

I know I need to do daily, easy, narration with my DS 6.5. He's really sharp but can't retell to save his life. On the way home from church tonight, it took him about 5 minutes to retell a very short part of a story in a really painful way. After his tale, DD 4.75 succinctly retold a story book we hadn't read in a month. I realize there is genetics at play here, but I also know that narration is an important skill.

 

We are using Aesop's fables about two days a week, but we really need good, short narration material for every day.

 

What books have you found lend themselves well to narration? Any favorites? How can I help DS without giving him sentences to repeat? I have FLL 1, and I'll be using the narration lessons in there, but I could use some more guidance.

 

Thanks,

Emily

[smillard00]

Practice practice practice... Some of them take a while to get the hang of it and some are just naturals. At first, have him narrate small sections of the story or fable, gradually working up to full length stories. A lot of the Charlotte Mason books have good narration information. Ambleside Online has tips and tricks to help with narration. In addition to the fables, they also use Burgess Bird Book and Paddle to the Sea (Holling), among other things, for the year 1 students. Maybe one of these would be good? What kind of books does he like?

[EmilyGF]

He reads everything and generally likes everything I give him. He just can't get the idea that there is a main point.

 

Do you think starting with a single paragraph and saying, "What is the main point?" would help?

 

Aesops seems to work well because they are simple and the main point is summed up at the end. Anything much longer gets really painful, though I guess I could spread it out over a few days.

 

He really likes narrating and is joyful whenever I make it happen.

 

Emily

[Kirch]

Have you checked out Writing with Ease? Level 1 uses short sections (no more than a couple of paragraphs), includes questions to help him recall the information, and then asks for one thing he remembers from the passage. Eventually he'll work up to longer narrations that focus on the main points. It's very step-by-step. It's not a hard method to use on your own, but using the book is nice because all the passages are right there for you, and it incorporates copywork as well.

 

If you'd rather do your own thing, you could also try Thornton Burgess' books (The Adventures of Reddy Fox, The Adventures of Peter Cottontail, and many more). They have very short chapters, but probably still longer than the fables. But they're high-interest, and most have one main event to focus on.

 

I had an "aha!" moment after getting into narration with my oldest. He *needed* examples and some guidance to really get what I was asking him to do. So you may *need* to model it with him some--discuss the story/passage, begin sentences for him to finish, or even give him sentences to repeat as he figures out exactly what you want him to do. I'd even take a couple of stories and talk through the process of doing a narration myself. I had to remind myself that it was okay to take some time doing this--he's going to be doing narrations for a loooong time (which does NOT thrill him! ;)). I realized that we wouldn't be "behind" because we stopped to really work on this. That's also why we started WWE--lots of practice with little prep work on my part. He's doing much better now, and although it's still not his favorite thing, he doesn't fight me on it anymore.

[smillard00]

There are different stages of narration skills. When he is beginning, it is OK if he is giving longer narrations with grueling detail. (This is my humble opinion based on my reading, of course. Others may disagree.) But at first, just getting him to go through the process of paying attention to what is read and then relating that information back to you is an important part of the narration process. I think the best way to prompt this is a simple, "Tell me what you remember." After he has practice with that process, then you could encourage him to tell you the most important parts or something like that to help him focus his retelling. You could also narrow it down by asking him to tell you his favorite part or to tell you about something that surprised him--but I think that starts venturing away from narration into the territory of comprehension questions.

 

One other tip--before he speaks, ask him to pause and think about what he wants to say. Maybe that would help add some focus as well. Some kids will feel stress about narrating and will just start talking and ramble on and on. Asking them to stop and think about what they want to tell you might take some of that pressure off and slow down the rambling.

[boscopup]

He reads everything and generally likes everything I give him. He just can't get the idea that there is a main point.

 

Do you think starting with a single paragraph and saying, "What is the main point?" would help?

 

I think you're moving too fast. I would check out the WWE1 workbook. It's great at guiding you into teaching narration. At that stage, you would just ask some questions about the story, then say "What is ONE thing you remember about this passage?" It can be anything. It doesn't have to be the main point! This eases them into remembering that there was a passage just read and it had some details in it. :)

 

In level 2 of WWE, you start narrowing down the main point by asking 2-3 leading questions specifically summarizing the main point (after you've done some questions about various details in the story). Then you ask for a 2-3 sentence summary of the passage. They are able to do this because you've just asked them questions where the answers ARE the narration. ;)

 

Gradually those extra questions are taken away and the child finds the main point themselves.

[Haiku]

Do you think starting with a single paragraph and saying, "What is the main point?" would help?

 

 

 

No. Kids that age don't really understand what the "main point" is. Were it me, I would start by reading a long sentence and having him restate it in fewer words. You could even say, "Tell me in 8 words what this sentence was about." You could even say, "Finish this sentence: 'The king ...'"

 

Once he can retell one sentence, move to two. Then three. Etc.

 

Writing with Ease doesn't have kids focusing on the "main point" until the end of the 3rd level. It's still interesting to me to see how my nine year old's idea of what the "main point" of a story is sometimes differs from my idea. If my kids are having trouble with a narration, I will ask them three questions, and then have them use their answers to those three questions as their narration.

 

Tara

[Haiku]

"What is ONE thing you remember about this passage?"

 

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that at the beginning of WWE!

 

Tara

[Satori]

I also recommend the WWE program. WWE1 has the child remember just one important thing. After they're fluent doing just that, WWE2 (which we started this summer) hand-holds the process in beginning to independently formulate an effective summary. I look forward to continuing and seeing where the rest of the year leads us!

[threeofakind]

Maybe start with "tell me about...", we are new to this too, but if I provide a prompt of some sort it goes better and hopefully over time they will get better.

[Evergreen Academy]

I have twice written long detailed posts on this thread, and twice, I have accidentally deleted them before pushing submit. Grrr! Now I have to make dinner, so this post will be short.

 

I feel for you, they are so different and I have that disparity going on here too. Narration is very tricky for Littlest, 8, and it's been both maddening and therapuetic to work on it. He sighs when I ask him to give a narration after every reading (except bedtime stories), and when he asks why he has to, I tell him he knows - and he answers, "Because it makes my brain stronger." Yup.

 

WWE was a bust here, as the passages out of context were too difficult for him to focus on. I read more about Charlotte Mason's philosophies, and learned that her view on teaching narration was not to get the children to tell back a main point or review the story in 5 sentences, but to spread a rich feast of ideas before the child, and use narration to show that the child is making connections in his learning - and the connections may be the same as or different than the ones we'd make, or he may come to the same conclusions as we have, but only after years - or he may come to some fabulous conclusions we'd never have thought of.

 

I wrote a lot here before I deleted it, but for now, if you'd like to read a little about how narration has worked at our house, this blog post details it just a bit:

http://undertheevergreens.blogspot.com/2011/07/giving-thanks.html

Hang in there, he will get it!

Edited September 8, 2011 by Evergreen Academy
word choice

[WIS0320]

We love Around the World in 80 Tales for our lit narrations. The stories are short and generally have a good moral message.

[Carol in Cal.]

Model it for him. Use a longish chapter book that you read a chapter in every day. At the beginning of reading it, summarize what has happened so far, and remind him of the last thing that happened. Then over time gradually ask him to do this occasionally and work your way up to him doing it each time. This is what worked great for my daughter.

[Mommy22alyns]

Writing With Ease is the best way to do it.

[Amy Jo]

I had to go a long way back with my eldest, because he could not follow a story. He didn't picture it in his head, so it was meaningless words. We did Visualizing and Verbalizing, which helped.

 

I noticed that doing CW Aesop, where we discuss the story in more detail, reread it, and then he retells the story, that he does better. He really likes dictating his retelling back to me and seeing it fill the paper.

 

I like SCM's tips here.

[fairy4tmama]

We liked Hey! Listen to This by Jim Trelease and Great Children's Stories For practice in learning Narration.

FWIW we use WWE and each child (6+) does one Charlotte Mason Style narration every day. We do both because they are different types of narration.

[nicholsonhomeschool]

I had an "aha!" moment after getting into narration with my oldest. He *needed* examples and some guidance to really get what I was asking him to do.

:iagree:

 

This was important for my son also (8yo). I read the examples in SOTW to him after many months of trying to get him to provide an appropriate amount of information. Also, I would show him what I would say as a narration. Now, just for *fun* he gives me his narration and then we read the examples to compare.